


What Was Lost

by iwasanartist



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hulk - Freeform, Missing Scene, natasha romanov - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24060790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwasanartist/pseuds/iwasanartist
Summary: Losses hit hard after the time heist and before the snap.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Steve Rogers
Kudos: 3





	What Was Lost

Steve found Bruce in a top-level containment unit. One of the early prototypes built to hold Hulk. It hadn't been hard. He'd just followed the footprints stomped into the floor, cracking through linoleum and cement and the doors hauled nearly off their hinges, mangled by something that looked distinctly like a handprint.

The room was dark, barely illuminated by the bit of light that spilled in through the doorway.

"Bruce?"

"I don't think you want to be with me, right now, Cap."

"Don't be so sure." Steve flipped a switch, bathing the room in light that made Bruce shield his eyes. Rounded cracks were all around the containment unit, like it'd gone 12 rounds in a boxing ring with a green giant. Steve pulled up a chair and sat down just outside the unit. "How ya doing?"

"Been better." Bruce's hands balled into fists and positively vibrated with energy.

"Do we need to be worried about the other guy?"

"No," Bruce said. "The things I did to make this happen-" Bruce gestured at himself "to merge the brawn and the brain...sometimes I think I..." He paused and stared down at his hands before running them through his hair.

"What?"

"I think he's gone. Just blinked away like *that*" he snapped his fingers, the sound echoing through the room and down the hallway. "I used to be able to hear him, sometimes. When he was restless. Angry. Before all this. And now? Now, I sometimes have a bit of an anger management issue," he smiled bitterly and gestured around the busted containment unit, "but it's nothing like before. It's nothing I can't get a grip on just like anyone else." Bruce swallowed and knocked a fist into the glass. "I killed him."

Steve shook his head. "No, you didn't."

"I did. I killed Hulk. I killed Nat-"

"NO." Steve stood up and pressed his hands into the spiderwebbed glass. "NO. Bruce. You did not kill Natasha."

"Don't give me that! If I hadn't listened to Lang. If I hadn't started on the machine-"

"Then Tony still would have finished it! Does that make it his fault? Is it mine for leading the mission?"

"You don't understand-"

"I understand," Steve said. "I understand the hole in your heart. I understand the punch to your gut and the fog in your brain. But I also understand Nat-" he choked on her name. Natasha had been easy to say. Natasha was the assassin, the spy, the Black Widow. Nat was his friend.

"I wish she were still with us," Steve said. "That we could have gotten the stone another way. But, Bruce, I spent the last five years with her, and I can tell you she didn't just die for this moment. For this opportunity, right here. She lived for it, too. It was *all* she lived for. I hate that she's gone -- I hate it more than I've ever hated anything. But I'm glad that she's free. I'm glad that she wasn't just a nameless casualty somewhere on a battlefield. She had a mission, and she finished it. And for people like us, I can't think of many better ways to go out. She ran her leg of the race to its end, and now it's time for us to run ours."

Bruce sniffed, and wiped at his face before rising and stepping gingerly out of the containment unit. His index finger tapped lightly on Steve's shoulder.

"Thanks Steve."

"No problem. Now Tony's about to add the stones to the gauntlet. What do you say we go try to snap the world back into existence?" Bruce nodded and they were almost to the elevator when he spoke again.

"So, five years, huh? Did you and Nat ever..."

"No," Steve said quickly. "Almost, once, but no."

"Hm," Bruce said, the sound almost lost in the ding of the elevator's arrival. "That's too bad."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean...it was never gonna work with us. Not really. But you two...I think you'd have been good together. And you deserved to be happy. Still do, in your case."

Steve swallowed as the elevator brought his heart into his throat.

"Thanks," he said softly. "Maybe in another life." Bruce laid his palm on Steve's back, the tips of his fingers curling around his shoulders.

"Yeah, maybe."


End file.
